Sri Nampillai

Nampillai was born as Varadaraaja in Nampoor, and lived south of Srirangam at the beginning of 13th century. When he grew up, he used to attend regularly the discourses of Sri NanjIyar at Srirangam. Once when NanjIyar asked his disciples for someone who could legibly copy his commentary in the Tiruvaaymozhi (9000), they suggested Varadaraaja of Nampoor. Varadaraaja agreed, but lost the manuscript while crossing the KaavEri river. Upset at loosing the text of an important work entrusted to him, he started writing from memory. When he handed over the text to NanjIyar, he realized some parts of the commentary differed considerably from the original. When Varadaraja confessed to NanjIyar about the incident across KaavEri, NanjIyar was pleased with his efforet and named him Nampillai (Our Son) and later appointed him as his successor. Since then Nampillai started giving discourses in Srirangam.

At the same time, Tolappar, the grand son of Mudaliandan, who was incharge of the temple activities in Srirangam and had a great following, grew jealous of Nampillai's popularity. However, Tolappar, acknowledged Nampillai's greatness saying, I was acharya for some Srivaishnavas, but your are lokAchArya (is Acharya of the world). Hence he was also know as Lokacharya.

Nampillai did not commit to writing his discourses. However, he is very important to the Guru prarmparai as his teachings greatly influenced his disciples like Vadaku thiruveedi pillai, the author of Edu (36000) vyakyaanam for Tiruvaaymozhi (one of the best). His other disciples include Periyavachan pillai, Pillai Lokacharya, Azhakiya Manavalap Perumal Nayanar and Pinpazhakiya perumal jeeyar. All of them composed many independent works and commentaries on Divya Prabandam.